India’s batting muscle powered them to 256, and despite a valiant 97 from Brian Bennett, Zimbabwe were never really in the chase
India set up a knockout clash against West Indies on Sunday with a comfortable win against Zimbabwe on a night that Abhishek Sharma scored his maiden World Cup fifty and India made a small tweak in their batting combination to unleash the second-highest total in T20 World Cups, going past the 254 Zimbabwe conceded in their last match.
Six men batted for India, each individual innings lasted 15 to 30 balls, and their strike rates ranged from 158.33 to 275. In all, they hit 17 sixes, the most for India in a single T20 World Cup innings.
Zimbabwe asked India to bat first expecting help for fast bowlers. Their reading of conditions was accurate, but the execution was much better from the much more experienced India bowlers, who kept them to 33 in five overs, post which there was hardly any way back.
Samson breaks up left-hand cluster
India finally admitted their cluster of three left-hand batters at the top was giving offspinners a match-up to exploit, that Suryakumar Yadav was not going to be promoted to No. 3, and sacrificed some lower-order hitting of Rinku Singh to bring in Sanju Samson. Zimbabwe were anyway looking to open with their tall fast bowlers, both of whom Samson hit for sixes down the ground off the back foot in the first two overs. He eventually fell for just 24 off 15, but he was part of India’s biggest opening stand this tournament: 48 off 3.4 overs.
Abhishek finds flow, others flair
Dropped catches hurt Zimbabwe
Had Zimbabwe held on to two pretty straightforward chances, Kishan would have been dismissed for 26 off 19 and Suryakumar for eight off four. The two ended up with 38 off 24 and 33 off 13. The innings was set up beautifully for Hardik Pandya and Tilak Varma to finish off.
